Tracking POGO, ABC News and Time

Try as hard as I might to get away from media criticism, our old friends at ABC News and Time keep popping up to reveal more about relationships between reporters and sources that seem all too cozy.

And right in the middle of all of it is the Project on Government Oversight, a so-called watchdog group that claims it isn't anti-nuclear even thought they continue to maintain that security at industry facilities can't stand up to terrorist attack.

To recap the ABC News side of the story related to the Prime Time Live report, "Loose Nukes," POGO and ABC failed to disclose that POGO had received a two-year, $200,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation, the same Carnegie Corporation that provided the ten Carnegie Fellows for the network's "Radioactive Roadtrip." The same POGO that provided consultant Richard Stockton as a source for "Loose Nukes".

Here's a passage from a piece on anonymous sources in this month's issue of American Journalism Review entitled, "Uncharted Terrain," by Rachel Smolkin:

It was a bombshell for us when we saw what Time had done," says [Danielle] Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group that works with media outlets and provides trusted reporters with names of government employees and contractors that must remain confidential. "We had always worried about a sloppy reporter, but I never thought there'd be a concerted decision made to turn over names."

She e-mailed Mark Thompson, a Time reporter she respects and has worked with for 20 years, to tell him that the magazine's actions in the Valerie Plame case will have "profound ramifications" for future collaborations with her organization.

Let's stop right there. I'm sure many of you will recall that Time feature, a story with a lot of holes that we spent a considerable amount of time debunking.

I can't help but note that Smolkin described Thompson, who has a "20-year working relationship" with Brian, as a reporter who could be "trusted".

When we first read the Time story over that weekend last June, we couldn't help but be struck that every one of the charges had surfaced before, in most cases months earlier. In other words, it seems like Thompson could be trusted to make a big splash with old allegations.

Further, I always thought it was the other way around, that it was the reporter who had to determine whether or not a source was trustworthy. I'm sorry we had it backwards for so long.

So the next time you see a story like the ones peddled by Time and ABC News, keep in mind that features like these don't just come together out of thin air.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Energy, Technology, Homeland Security, ABC News, Time, Carnegie Institute, POGO